BRATTLEBORO — Hogwarts Summer Session Day Camp, based on the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, is returning for its fourth season Aug. 12 to 16, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at All Souls Church in West Brattleboro.
Each of the five days of camp, for kids aged 7-12, begins in the Great Hall with music, readings and reflection from the Harry Potter stories, and a preview of the day.
Then the “houses,” arranged by age, will join the day's teachers for classes such as wand making and other transformations, wizardly songs and spells, the natural history of magical creatures, kitchen magic, quidditch and other games, and divination.
Although participants need not have read all the books or seen all the film adaptations, the experience is much richer for children who have some grounding in that world.
According to Headmistress Linda Hay, “It's been so rewarding to have campers and counselors return year after year, reminiscing about activities like the search for owls in the Forbidden Forest, making wands, enjoying butterbeer and pumpkin juice, and looking forward to new adventures.”
“Last year, we set up a library for kids who needed a little down time, and many of the older ones went straight to the Harry Potter books whenever they had a free moment - and instantly fell under their spell again,” Hay said in a notice announcing the camp's return.
Hay said that as a librarian at Academy School, she invented a form of muggle - non-magical, in Rowling parlance - quidditch, which proved a huge hit with both students and parents who gathered after school to play.
Quidditch is a competitive sport in the wizarding world of the Harry Potter universe.
Now retired, Hay has been the camp's Potter maven for all four years. She taught muggle quidditch at Accio in 2005 in Reading, England, and in 2007 in Regent's Park in London; and held a session on teaching with Potter at LeakyCon in Orlando, Fla., in 2011.
She writes that those experiences reinforced for her the power of make-believe to take folks of all ages to “a magical place where day-to-day worries drop away, while still giving them food for thought about the very real challenges of living in a world with prejudices, injustice, and evil.”
“Soon after camp ends,” says Hay, “I begin exploring new ideas for the next one and find that I'm just as excited as the participants are.”